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For trying to sell police vests …”COP CHARGED”

A police officer, charged with stealing three firearm holsters and two bulletproof vests from the Couva Police Station, was granted $50,000 bail on Friday.

Marlon Baptiste, 22, who has one year service, appeared before Couva Magistrate Suimongal Ramsaran charged with larceny. He pleaded not guilty to stealing the holsters, but he was not asked to plead to two charges of stealing the bulletproof vests. The charges alleged he stole the items belonging to the service between December 2016 and January 2018.

Baptiste was arrested on January 29 after Princes Town CID officers stopped a Mazda pick-up with three occupants along Ramlal Trace, Barrackpore. It is alleged that Baptiste was in possession of the two bulletproof vests, each valued at $5,000, which went missing from the station in 2016 and 2018. It is alleged that during a subsequent search of Baptiste’s Penal home the police found three holsters, valued at $675, with the markings ‘Couva TTPS’ on them. The holsters were discovered missing during an inventory check at the station last month.

Prosecutor Sgt Lincoln Bonnett said the file had to be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions for a state attorney to be appointed. Saying he would not entertain the matter staying before his court for three or four years, Ramsaran said the DPP should treat the matter with importance. Rejecting a request for the exhibits to be returned to the police, the magistrate said if the police need these items “then we in a bad way.”

As the truth of our economic predicament sets in, readers may find it useful to look back at previous budgets since 2001.

One will easily note that in a nine-year period up to 2010, national budgets increased by over 300%, and while this happened, oil and gas production declined, there were drastic declines in drilling, negligible diversification, foreign investment plunged, and the State was plagued by over-budget mega projects.

In the years 2011 to 2015, national budgets increased by approximately 26% in spite of non-boom oil and gas prices, with increases in oil and gas exploration and new investments, as well as completed and delivered large-scale projects.